


Fate

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7183187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The idea of fate is too ridiculous to bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate

Someone had once said, "I can control my destiny, but not my fate."

Roadhog doesn't really believe that. He believes all too strongly that every person on the planet, man woman and child, has the capacity to steer their own life. Things like fate and destiny, they’re crutches for the weak and the overly innocent. Like the idea of God, it’s all just one big wheel, a sort of trap that ensnares the gullible and gives them an excuse not to do anything to change the world around them.

And it’s not that Roadhog gives a shit about Joe Shmoe and whatever struggles the average everyman might be going through in these troubled times, but he can’t help thinking about it sometimes.

People get stuck in shitty situations, and they sigh or they whine or they pray. It’s disgusting on a major level, at least to a guy who took his whole life in hand and became someone new. Adaptation, mutability, that’s the biggest strength human beings possess; no human is hardwired like a Goddamn robot.

Maybe that’s what he likes about Junkrat so much. Junkrat takes action, doesn’t look to anyone else to solve his problems or make way for him in the world. Hell, he pays Roadhog to watch out for him and he still looks out well enough for himself.

‘Rat doesn’t expect much from anyone else in the world. That’s why he steals without remorse… or, at least, that’s how Roadhog’s figured it. Jamie doesn’t expect to receive anything without fighting for it, so he figures he might as well cut out the middleman and take what he wants without asking.

Yeah, his methods are shaky. It feels like Roadhog spends half his time trying to keep Junkrat on track, keep him focused. To ‘Rat it boils back to a love of mayhem, which can be hard on ‘Hog. ‘Hog likes to have a plan and to follow that plan, not just muck up some rough idea of a goal and the blast a place to hell for a bit of cash.

His moods are hard to swallow, all these soaring highs where he spends days at a time in exuberant full throttle eagerness, ready for anything, eager to get moving and keep going. Or worse, those rare nights when ‘Rat _isn’t_ all excited, fidgeting joy, when his mood is somehow so low ‘Hog half expects him to weep.

In a lot of ways, ‘Rat is a nightmare.

Normally a laughing ball of energetic havoc, his ups and downs threaten to drive Roadhog insane. The fact that he can’t figure out what triggers the change in mood is part of it; the eternal worry and reluctant guilt that it’s something to do with him are maddening.

Sometimes ‘Hog thinks (bitterly, always so bitterly) that Junkrat fixes him with those long looks, or goes slow, sad hours at a time without looking at him, just to make him guilty. Which is, of purse, patently ridiculous. Junkrat doesn't make people feel guilty, he doesn't think that way.

Still, having him around all the time is a strange break in ‘Hog’s exceptionally lonely life. It's disruptive, because Roadhog had become used to the loneliness, was sometimes even comforted by it. He intentionally kept everyone at arm's length, because he found it easier than trying to build new relationships in the wasteland. And what point was there in making commitments to people who would either abandon or betray him in the end – or who he would have to cut loose himself? At least if he’s lonely he’s not faced with any of this emotional bullshit.

He can't put Junkrat at arms distance, though, and this disturbs him. With Junkrat, it's all or nothing, and it's on the other man's terms entirely. When he's there, he's there, a quiet tense, bundle of muscle and lethal intent. His presence is both limited and all consuming, because when he's there, Roadhog is intimately aware of him, but can ignore him well enough to deal with whatever he might want to take care of on his own. But when he's off on some maudlin mind trip, Roadhog is suddenly hollow. He is not used to wanting people around, to wishing someone would stay, to wanting to keep them happy.

For as long as ‘Hog has known him, it’s always been Junkrat’s nature to take more on himself than he has too. It is because of this that he has become the nightmare he is – trying to fight every fight that comes to his attention. And while Roadhog has no real idea what it is that might have driven the smaller man to the mania he generally exhibits, any more than he understands these deep depressive episodes. He doesn’t really _want_ to know, if he’s perfectly honest, but still he thinks about it sometimes, wonders how responsible he really is.

He wakes up some nights from nightmares. He refuses to let himself remember what exactly it is that he sees, but some of it slips through anyway. Junkrat blown limb from limb; Junkrat beaten to bloody hell and the bruises, god, the bruises match ‘Hog’s own knuckles; Junkrat clinging to his arm, bleeding and slipping and so far beyond his help its petrifying.

Junkrat is something like the dream of a nearly forgotten concept; the illusion of an ideal that has slipped beyond Roadhog’s grasp. Junkrat somehow embodies all the little intricacies of humanity that Roadhog had thought to leave behind when he put on his mask. The smaller man is amazingly tough and violent and suffers from a regrettable lack of self-grooming, and he's also among the bravest and most honest human beings Roadhog’s has ever had the pleasure of speaking with.

There’s nothing Junkrat expects from the rest of the world and that’s something Roadhog respects immensely. As nightmarish and difficult as the other man can be to deal with, Roadhog can’t think of one other person he’d allow to boss him around.


End file.
